My friend Pete, a local art teacher has been practicing the Japanese art of Raku. Like most, I’ve never header of Raku before, but when Pete told me it involved dirt, fire and burning odd materials, I knew I’d like it.

Rather then doing a book report on Raku, you can read up on it for yourself on Wikipedia.

I didn’t want to make a traditional pot, but rather something very odd and different for my desk at work. The plan; to design a cool iPhone holder. Yep, pretty geeky, I know. Here are the highlights from my first experience with Raku.

1. Working with clay to make anything other then a straight pot is pretty difficult. Especially in the arid Colorado climate. The more you work a piece of clay the drier it gets and cracks start appearing. Next time, I’ll do more planning then experimenting before I start.
2. Let it sit. The longer it sits the drier the piece and the less likely it is to crack on firing.
3. Apply the glaze. I went with a copper glaze to give it the look I wanted. In hindsight I think I would have gone for a gloss black instead.
4. Toss it in the kiln. Apparently at 1600 degrees Raku is considered a low temperature pottery. Let it cook for about 1 hour.
5. This is where it gets cool. Create a nest of hay, saw dust and paper. Pull out the red hot pottery and toss it in the hay. The whole thing starts to burn, at which point you suffocate the fire and let it smolder.
6. The smoldering fire cracks and distorts the glaze to make the random patterns which Raku is known for.

Let it cool for another hour or so and then you’ll be good to go.

Here is my creation. It’s very rough around the edges but it makes for a great iPhone holder and an interesting conversation piece.